Music mania

We have entered the musical marathon portion of the holidays. It is excruciating and awesome all at once.

I mean, what's Christmas without a good old concert to attend?

Well, we won't find out for many, many years. We are fully stocked for the foreseeable future.

Megan's Special Chorus:

Ethan Jazz Ensemble:

Mat's band concert:

Megan's band concert:

Megan's piano recital:

The girls favorite seats for each and every performance we attend....slithering on the floor just outside the doors.

Candlelight

This is always one of my favorites.

And this year we classed it up with our individual jello cups. 

Is there any better smell than a roast in the oven when you walk in the door after church? NO!

Mashed potatoes, anyone?

Rolls. Sweet heavenly rolls.

Let's eat!

Cookies, Devotional and Flynns

We didn't actually put Christmas sugar cookies in our Nativity calendar this year.  Sometimes I really feel like making and decorating sugar cookies. Sometimes I really don't.

So I leave it up to fate. 

And fate said "Time for cookies!"

Lots and lots of cookies.

We made so many, we decided to invite the Flynns over to help decorate them and watch the First Presidency Christmas devotional. I forgot to take any pictures of that. We were too busy eating cookies and talking. It was Todd's birthday too so we got to split a key lime pie. (One of my new favorites.)

Here's a random cookie cutter.

I did get this one of Kylie giving the little girls rides while she slides on the floor on her back.

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday night.

Festivus

While Anna was having her fun friend birthday party, Mark was competing in the Festivus crossfit games at I35. 

His team: Jessica Youmans, Brandon Hearn, Mark, Kelly Margheim

And my new favorite photo of him:  

Nativity

Time for the Nativity!

I am always amazed at how they are able to transform the gym into a beautiful venue that you are proud to invite your friends to.  Just think how much money that person could earn if they market to Mormon brides that don't want to have their reception under the basketball hoop!

I (of course) played viola. My stand partner this year was an adorable 7th grader named Sedona. She was pretty good!

Mathew sang in the youth choir and volunteered for a shift as a shepherd in the live Nativity.

Anna and Laney lining up to go in for their children's number:

All lined up on the second night. I am so glad the girls participate in this (Megan ditched this year). I love the feeling that you get when you make music in a group. I also really love that I'm busy playing my viola and I'm not in charge of keeping all of these kids quiet.

And when it's all over, we get to go peruse the cookie selection and do the speedy version of the Nativity scene scavenger hunt. It always seems like a great idea to promise the kids before the performance and like the worst thing ever after the performance. Next year I need to hunt down a cheat sheet.

Anna's Super Pajama Cocoa Party

We've come to the end of our "Friend Party Year".  This is our last one and we are home free! All next year we will enjoy a favorite meal and make a cake. 

Anna's birthday is during the winter, and typically cold, so we decided on a morning party....with pajamas and cocoa! Two of our favorite things.

We set up our cocoa and donut accessory station. So glad I bought that little lazy condiment server....it's makes everything a little fancy. And five year old girls put a premium on fancy.

We didn't have to worry about getting dressed up. Jammies! So all we had to do was cut the fruit, dig out the sprinkles and open a box of donuts from Price Chopper.

This is my kind of party.

Soon kids arrived in there snugglies and socks.

I love Anna's smile.

Megan and Laney supervised "Pin the Star on the Christmas Tree".

I love big kids!

Then we played Bows in a Bucket relay races in the kitchen.

And then we raced to see who could build the tallest tower with their marshmallows.

It wasn't long before someone discovered the advantages of licking the marshmallows.

We whipped up another cake, so they could sing and she could blow out the candles, but we didn't slice it up to eat.  They were still riding high on the cocoa and donut wave.

Unfortunately, while Anna was trying to blow out her candles, she got a little too close and her hair started on fire! She lost a couple inches of hair on the left side, but no major damage was done. 

While we waited for the parents to come pick kids up, we played "Build a Snowman". Which was silly and fun and taught me that it's not that easy to wrap someone up in toilet paper. It keeps breaking and you have to have a very continuous and steady pace to wrap someone effectively. 

These are not common traits of 5 year old kids. 

We sent everyone out the door with a cocoa mug and some fuzzy socks, a container playdough and a chocolate penguin. Hip Hip Hooray for the dollar store!

Happy 5th Birthday, Annagator!

Coffee filter snowflakes...Advent begins!

It's December 1st and that means it's Advent Calendar time!

Tonight we make snowflakes out of flattened coffee filters. They're so light and airy and easy to cut and super cheap. So I don't feel bad if they make hundreds.